


Sioux Falls and Starting Fresh

by AshwinMeird



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adoptive Parent Bobby Singer, Alive Mary, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Awesome Charlie, Charlie Bradbury and Dean Winchester are Siblings, Dean and Sam Reunion, Divorced John Winchester/Mary Winchester, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Happy Ending, John Took Dean, M/M, Mary Campbell - Freeform, Mary Kept Sam, Mary Misses Dean, Oblivious Sam, POV Sam, Reunion, Sam Campbell - Freeform, Sam Finds Out, Sam Misses Dean, established Destiel, john is gone, slow moving plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29853807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshwinMeird/pseuds/AshwinMeird
Summary: After his mom received a promotion from work Sam finally moved away from his childhood home in Lawrence, right to Sioux Falls.  While he battles missing the brother he never knew he meets a new friend named Charlie Singer.Sam quickly learns that his new school is much different from his old one and the people are... not who he expected.This work is complete and will update on Thursdays.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury & Sam Winchester, John Winchester/Mary Winchester (past)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Quick forwarning: I pissed off my beta with how long it took some people to figure some things out.
> 
> ... Enjoy!
> 
> Also, Sam has some opinions (nothing bad really) from his personal experiences in the past, he gets corrected though and everything works out well.

Sam and his mom moved to Sioux Falls after Christmas Break in Sam’s freshman year of high school. His mom, Mary, had gotten a promotion at her job and Sam had started to have some difficulties with the people at his old school, so it worked out for the best for both of them.

It, as far back as Sam remembers, had always just been him and his mom. His parents had divorced when he was just six months old and neither of them could afford a lawyer so they just split the custody of one kid each.

Sam’s older brother, Dean, was taken by John, their father.

He knew Mary always regretted losing Dean, the original agreement was for both parents to stay in Lawrence, but John moved no more than a month after custody papers were signed and changed his phone number.

Dean and Sam were supposed to see each other annually at minimum, but Sam’s never met his brother. 

His mom still told him everything she could about Dean, that he was sweet and used to ‘protect’ Sam, even though he was four the last time they had been in the same room. They sort of pseudo celebrated Dean’s birthday every January 24th; just taking out some old photos and eating a slice of pie.

It had been Dean’s favourite.

The school break was a little longer at his new school, so Sam wouldn’t have to be there for about a week longer than he originally thought of him alone in his new house. He spent most of that time unpacking.

The house was smaller than the old one, which made sense as he grew up in the house that had once been home to a family of four and now it was just him and his mom. It’s one of those houses in a suburb that’s skinny but has like three floors to make up for it and no back yard.

Sam doesn’t really care about the yard though, he’s planning on keeping his head down for the next few years so he can graduate in peace. That’s what he had to do at his last school.

His mom liked the garden though, she had a knack for making and fixing stuff like that.

He started back to school on a Wednesday, but his mom was back to work the Monday after they arrived in town. Mary was an investigative journalist, she worked about forty-five minutes from their new house but that was a shorter commute than the one she had back in Lawrence.

Monday had been boring for him, the WiFi didn’t get installed until Tuesday morning, but he finished unpacking all the random boxes of stuff that they hadn’t gotten around to and he even snuck out to a convenience store not far away to grab some snacks.

Tuesday was better, he was able to use his mom’s old laptop, with the newly installed WiFi, to play video games with his only friend from his old school, Andy.

Sam was worried about school, the few months he spent at his old school was a special kind of hell. He was harassed and subjected to people being dicks constantly just because he was smart. He also wasn’t very athletic so all of the ‘sports guys’ made fun of him for that. He wanted to be friends with this girl, Ava, she was nice to him but any time he tried to talk to her people would say he liked her and Ava started to avoid him.

All in all, Sam knew how high school worked, it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

Somebody like him, smart and lacklustre at sports, was meat. And meat didn’t get to be happy or safe.

He learned quickly at his old school to stick around after classes until the last possible minute then rushed to his next class. Breaks were spent in the library or the back room of the computer lab. Don’t talk to any girls, don’t try to talk to any guys.

Cheerleaders and the aforementioned ‘sports guys’ are always the worst. And their word is always law in high school.

The built-in segregation of high schools made it easier for him, he would automatically have safety within the nerd groups so they were at least a safe bet if he ever needed help. The jock types would also not be seen near him if he was part of a herd.

His mom was taking the morning off on Wednesday to go to the school with him. Sam appreciated it but having his mom around was a sure-fire way to incite teasing on his first day. Nonetheless, she could not be deterred.

Sam woke up on Wednesday, knowing what he was in for. What he didn’t expect though, was being very, very wrong.

* * *

Sioux Falls High School was just as plain and unassuming as it sounded, it was an older, not old, building not far from the center of town. It didn’t seem awfully big but as far as Sam had been told it wasn’t an overly large school.

Larger schools would offer more invisibility than smaller ones.

He followed his mom in, they were here before most students but staff were roaming the halls from what Sam could tell.

A lady sitting behind a counter in the office pointed them to the principal’s office. The school is nicer on the inside than Sam expected, but he doesn’t let that draw him into a false sense of security. This place is full of the same type of people as his old, frankly sketchy, school back in Lawrence.

“Mr. Redfield?” Mary said, softly knocking on the open door.

Behind a large dark wood desk, sat an older-looking man with hair that reminded Sam of Doc from the Back To The Future movies. “Oh, um. Hello,” He said looking confused for a moment. “Yes, please come in. You are the Campbells I presume?”

“We are, my name is Mary and my son Sam, here, is starting as a freshman today.”

They sat down as Mr. Redfield shuffled around some papers on his desk, pulling one from near the middle of a stack in the end. “My name is Donatello Radfield, I’ve been principal here for about twenty years now. You’ll have to excuse the mess right now, one of the admin ladies went into labour early and couldn’t finish up the end-of-semester reports over the break so we’ve been cleaning them up since yesterday.”

“That’s no problem,” His mom smiled. Sam stayed quiet, letting her do all the talking because she was used to talking to people, regardless of what kind of person they are.

“So this change shouldn’t really be a big deal, this school isn’t much different from your old one in terms of classes and minor stuff like that.” He was speaking directly to Sam, not about him to Mary which Sam was unused to. “We do unfortunately have to change one of your classes because you need at least one physical education credit to graduate and most take it their freshman year.”

He paused and Sam took a moment to realize it was for him to respond. “Uh, okay. What class am I taking that instead of?”

“You had automotive marked down and that’s usually a sophomore majority class so I’d recommend you take that next year.”

Sam nodded, he only chose that class when picking his courses because he had no other option. He hadn’t been looking forward to it, he knew what kind of people would be in that kind of elective course and he didn’t know anything about cars really.

“Great, so here is your schedule,” Mr. Radfield said, yanking another paper out of the stack and handing it to Sam. “I arranged for the freshmen student body rep to show you around to stay, you’re welcome to join Ms. Campbell but we usually recommend new students to go alone.”

That at least got one point against Sam taken away, he may actually be able to do this under the radar.

“Are you okay if I take off Sam? I doubt me being here will deter you from being as awesome as you usually are.” There she goes, being embarrassingly confident in him. If only she knew.

“I think I’m good Mom, all grown up and in high school remember?” Sam smirked in false confidence.

She ruffled his hair and he tried to duck away from it. “You’ll be grown up when I tell you to be,” Mary joked. “But I’ll leave you be, I suppose.”

There was a knock on the door and Sam turned to find a red-haired girl smiling in the doorway. “You wanted to see me, Red?”

“I’ve told you not to call me that, Miss Singer,” Mr. Redfield said, slightly annoyed but smiling softly.

“But this way’s more fun,” She said, stepping towards Sam and Mary. “I’m Charlie Singer, future president and here to be your tour guide until I get there,” ‘Charlie’ turned to him, “It’s Sam right?”

He nodded before Mr. Redfield spoke again, “Yes, Miss Singer here has volunteered to show you around and spend lunch with you today, or at least until you have your feet under you and to… what did you call it?”

“To integrate him, sir. By the end of the day, it’ll be like he grew up here.”

“To integrate, yes. Well, I can assure the both of you that she is the best person for this job and I’ll leave you in her capable hands. Good luck to you Mr. Campbell and a good afternoon to you Ms. Campbell.”

With that, the principal left. They all stayed still for a little, Mary and Sam sitting and Charlie partially against the wall from moving out of his way. “I think I’ll be on my way,” His mom said, “See you tonight, Sam.”

She clapped him on the shoulder as she got up to leave. He whispered his goodbye back to her as Mary nodded to Charlie.

“Well that just leaves the two of us,” Charlie said happily, “Are you ready for the ultimate school tour?”

Sam nodded, which was a lie.

* * *

Sam had never met someone like Charlie before. She was cheery and spoke a-mile-a-minute about whatever seemed to come across her brain.

“Cafeteria’s there, if you want food in a reasonable amount of time, what’ve you got second block?” Sam told her math and she responded, “He’ll usually keep you ‘til the bell but if you get your work done you can pack up early.”

“That’s the gym, you’re in there first block. I had that at the end of the day last semester, much more convenient if you ask me.”

“French will be in that room, it’s really just a multi-use classroom that kind of gets passed from teacher to teacher each block.”

“What’s your last class? Science? Okay so I’ve got that too, we’ll have french and science together. Lucky you, you’ve got an afternoon full of Charlie.”

As Sam, mostly mutely, followed her around she waved and greeted quite a few people. Charlie seemed to be one of those people that could just have a conversation with anyone, that was good for her but in Sam’s experience that was often accompanied by someone who greatly enjoyed being the center of attention.

Sam was more the type to have a close-knit set of a few good friends who he really knew as opposed to a large group that coexisted most of the time.

He brought it up to Charlie, asking casually if she knew everyone at the school when they were stopped at Sam’s locker.

“I’ve been going to the same school as these people since sixth grade,” She explained as she took him down the hall, “The middle school next door just feeds into this school, so no one new and no one gone.”

She showed Sam each of his classrooms and explained that their freshmen class was big enough that they needed two of each required class and he and Charlie didn’t share any classes until that afternoon. Not that that mattered much to him. Charlie seemed nice, and maybe a bit nerdy herself, but Sam was not interested in her, most likely, large group of equally bubbly and cheerful people.

They could be a lot to handle and even if Charlie seemed genuine, she was a minority in a world of fake people.

At least Charlie brought him to the door of the classroom some of his gym classes would be taking place in. He seemed to have lucked out and his whole mark for the class wasn’t based on his athletic ability.

“You good for now?” Charlie asked.

Sam nodded, peeking inside the classroom to see a small group of people. He took a step inside.

“I guess I’ll just be going then,” She said, sounding a bit odd, “You’ll sit with me at lunch right? Down in the cafeteria.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sam shrugged.

That seemed to appease her slightly, as she turned and left after that. Sam took a seat at the front of the room by the wall furthest from the teacher’s desk.

As more people filed into the room, Sam thought about Charlie. She wasn’t much different from any girl at his old school, hoodie, jeans and converse, so he figured he would only be her focus for a short period before he could disappear into the background again.

* * *

Gym class started like any other class did at the first of the semester, with a long lecture from the teacher about classroom etiquette and the reading out the entire course schedule that was handed out seconds prior.

Sam sat in silence, not really listening. Neither was most, or all, of the class.

One back corner of the room had several guys who were noticeably turned towards each other and talking, while the other had some less obvious, but still chatting, girls.

The teacher didn’t seem to care and just kept powering through.

With, according to the clock Sam had been watching for a majority of the class, about ten minutes left the teacher finally concluded and let them have free time. Instantly people turned to a friend or friends or even just pulled out their phones.

Sam didn’t move until a voice beside him said, “Um, hey.”

He turned to look at, for the first time, the guy sitting at the desk sat beside Sam’s. He was of Asian descent and had black hair half-covering his eyes. “Hi,” Sam said back.

“I’m Kevin Tran,” Kevin stuck a hand out to shake.

Sam shook his hand. “Sam Campbell.”

“Where are you from, Sam?”

“Kansas lived there all my life.”

Kevin nodded before asking, “What class do you have next?”

It wasn’t something Sam usually noticed, but it stuck out to him that this guy hadn’t used a single contraction or alternate speech pattern yet. It was all uniform and proper. “Math, how ‘bout you?”

“Math as well. None of my friends are in that class if you would like to sit together.”

Sam nodded. “Sure, but just a warning I’m not very talkative in class.”

“I will be too busy doing my own math to have the time to converse in class,” Kevin said plainly.

While laughing slightly, Sam agreed to sit with him in math. They spent the last few minutes of gym class talking about books they’ve read recently and Sam hoped that he might have found his first friend here.

* * *

Math class, predictably, was almost identical to the one before it. The teacher went over a lot of the same school rules and stuff before taking out the curriculum and starting to go through it. There were fewer people in this class due to it not being a general one and the students weren’t as talkative as the ones in his gym class had been.

Kevin was beside him and there were a few people he remembered from gym, but he didn’t really care to learn their names if he was never going to talk to them.

Their math teacher droned on for the seventy-five minute block and Sam let his eyes wander around the room. Nothing really piqued his interest, some of the posters on the wall perhaps, except for Kevin’s binder.

It already had labelled dividers separating sections of it and it appeared to be colour-coded.

He and Sam were going to get along fine.

* * *

After math, Kevin asked Sam to meet him in the cafeteria. Sam assumed that Charlie wouldn’t miss him so he agreed.

Before that though, Sam needed to go back to his locker and put his stuff in the classroom for his next class. 

He slipped in and out of the french room easily, after taking longer than was strictly necessary in order to avoid potentially running into somebody in said room. Sam was walking back towards the cafeteria when he came across a roadblock in the form of several guys both older and larger than him.

A couple of them were wearing letterman jackets so Sam already had warning bells going off in his head.

None of them had noticed Sam but he had no way of passing them, so he stood still, wondering how he should approach this.

The two directly in front of him, Lafitte and Singer according to their jackets, were lightly pushing at each other to the enjoyment of the other two in their group.

Lafitte hit Singer in the shoulder. “Like your relationship didn’t start with Cas asking you out.”

“So your _not_ going to ask Andrea out?” Singer asked, laughing as he jumped away from another swat from his teammate.

That jump, unfortunately, caused him to stumble and he would have hit Sam, had Sam not moved back at the last second.

“Watcher Dean, yer gonna crush the kid.”

Dean turned and noticed Sam for the first time. “Sorry, kid,” He said gruffly before him and another one of his buddies moved out of Sam’s way.

Sam was annoyed at that Dean guy for being just some other entitled guy who could play some sport, most likely football. He had no respect for Sam or anyone else who might’ve been in that hallway.

And this Cas? Why would she put up with shit from someone like Dean?

* * *

Sam found Kevin in the cafeteria near the end of one table. As far as he could tell most people were sitting with their arbitrarily assigned groups, completely oblivious to the rest of the world.

Kevin was sitting with another guy, who was also skinny but had short brown hair.

Sam sat after silently asking permission from Kevin. He turned to the guy across from him. “Hi, I’m Sam Campbell.”

“Garth Fitzgerald IV,” Garth responded, sticking out a hand after hastily dropping his sandwich back into its dish.

No one said anything for a moment, they just sat there each staring at their lunch. “So have you two always gone to school here?” Sam asked awkwardly.

“Our whole grade has not really changed much since we started school together. There was a bit of shuffling when we moved up to middle school but nothing in the past few years,” Explained Kevin.

A voice then added, “Don’t forget Alex, she moved away then moved back last year.”

“She was gone for less than a year,” Argued Kevin.

“Still left and came back, that’s like the definition of moving,” Charlie countered.

She was seated beside Garth on the opposite side of the table as him and Kevin, giving the latter a daring look.

Before either of them could continue their argument, Garth intervened, “Can we not fight over the literal and technical definitions of words again. I’m still not past you arguing about the use of ‘affect’ as a noun from last week.”

That seemed to silence both Charlie and Kevin easily before Charlie turned to Sam. Smiling, she said, “I thought you’d be alone since I was late getting down here- not that I didn’t think you’d make any friends or anything, just that first days are kinda a lot.”

“Kevin’s in my gym and math classes, he asked if I’d like to have lunch with him and his friends,” Sam explained awkwardly. He hadn’t expected to see Charlie once she figured out that he didn’t need a social babysitter anymore.

Charlie was giving him an odd, quizzical look. “Well I guess it was lucky that you agreed to sit with two people in the same friend-group then,” She said, setting a notebook beside her lunch bag.

“Um,” Was all Sam could bring himself to say.

“Or,” She speculated, “You did it completely unintentionally.”

“The second one.”

Kevin and Garth were casting concerned glances to one another, and to Sam and Charlie, but neither said anything. Sam accidentally looked Charlie in the eye, trapping himself.

“Why?”

Sam slumped down the cafeteria bench slightly, he did not particularly want to explain his experience with high school dynamics to his one potential group of friends if it would directly offend one of them. “I just didn’t expect you to hang out with peop- someone like me…”

Charlie rolled her eyes, sighing. “I don’t know what kind of high school you went to before this, but let me tell you one thing: that’s not how things work here. People don’t care about ‘status’ or ‘popularity’ or any of that junk here, your friends are who you play a sport or do an activity with, or whoever you’ve been friends with since you were really little. No one really cares about the sports teams except the players, their friends and families, and the teachers that used to play that sport. There’s none of that nerds and jocks stuff, or really any of those high school movie tropes, we're just people, not mature or civilized most of the time, but still people.”

Of that whole spiel, the only thing Sam chose to comment on was, “How do I make friends then? I don’t exactly have any childhood friends here.”

“You already have us,” Garth said, “We’re your friends.”

“It’s just that easy?” Sam asked skeptically.

Charlie shook her head. “You have to answer one crucial question first: Trek or Wars?”

Sam stared at her blank for a moment, his neurons firing randomly in a confused cluster in his brain. “You like Sci-Fi?”

“And Fantasy, Comics, anything escapism based.” When Sam continued to stare blankly at her, she turned to Kevin and asked, “Do I need to give him the ‘girls can be nerds’ speech too?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a goal of mine to make someone want to bang their head against a table tbh.

Before Sam knew it he had been in South Dakota for a few weeks. Time had flown by between school and hanging out with his new friends frequently. His mom had met both Linda Tran and Garth’s parents so he spent a lot of weekends at one of their houses when his mom knew she would be ‘working’ late.

She worked as an investigative journalist, which meant she left early in the morning and got home late in the evenings most days. Sam was used to this because she had a similar work schedule back in Lawrence and her office was quite far from their home.

His mom never sold the house Dean had once lived in, not until a month ago after she was offered a relocation with a raise that would help her put Sam through college.

He couldn’t help but feel bad for taking his mom away from one of the few remaining connections she had to her lost son, but the move still felt like it was for the best.

Sam knew, though, that like many others, this weekend when Sam was staying at the Tran household was not so his mom could do overtime for her day job.

No, she was looking for Dean.

That had been half the reason for her sudden career change from secretary to journalist when Sam was still in diapers. After John left with Dean his mom tried to find him, but John was an ex-marine so he knew how to hide.

There was a time, Sam could remember it, when he was about seven that his mom had been close to finding Dean, then he suddenly fell off the map completely one day. No more record of him since that day.

His mom doesn’t think Dean died. She couldn’t.

Sam didn’t want to either.

But for the sake of her own sanity, Sam knew that she only ever let herself look a few times a year. The biggest being in January, Dean’s birth month.

The weeks leading up to January 24th had always been a flurry of old documents and phone calls to people who Sam was pretty sure knew his mother by voice at this point.

She would never let him get involved though. It was too hard on her emotionally so she didn’t want Sam to be caught up in it. He had done his own, limited, searches online to no avail, so he knew the best help he could be was to support her through the month like he always did.

Because it's been nearly fourteen years.

Because he wished he could stop her pain.

Because he knew what it was like for _him_ to miss Dean.

He made sure to hug her extra tight and wish her good luck after he saw Linda’s car pull in the driveway.

* * *

Kevin’s, super-very-mega, clean house was the same as it was the other couple of times Sam had been there. He knew most of Linda’s rules, so he slipped his shoes and jacket in the guest closet before following Kevin up to his bedroom.

It wasn’t long before Garth was dropped off by his mom and Charlie walked over from her dad’s house. Sam had never been to Charlie’s house or met any part of her family, but he was only used to having people be ‘school friends’ so he was unfamiliar with the territory of hanging out with people outside of school.

He knew Linda preferred Kevin be close so he assumed that was a good portion of the reason they usually went to his house.

While Kevin and Garth loaded up Kevin’s WII, which his mom only let them use until 9 pm, Sam took the time to remind himself that his mom would be fine. She was always fine.

“Are you okay, Sam?” Charlie asked beside him, sitting closer than he remembered her being a second ago.

“Yeah,” He muttered. “I’m fine.”

She looked unconvinced. “Are you sure? You were all zoned out and deep think-y there for a sec.”

Sam took a deep breath. He and Charlie had actually grown quite close over their limited time as friends, he might even consider her his best friend, but he didn’t want to get into the whole story quite yet. “It’s just about my brother,” Charlie raised an eyebrow, “He went missing when I was just a kid, my mom still looks for him every new year.”

Charlie sighed, she looked sad. Sam knew what pity looked like, she wasn’t giving him that. “I know a little about what that’s like. My parents are both dead-”

“Jesus. I’m sorry that happened.”

“It was years ago and I got adopted not long after, things have been good since.” She shrugged.

Charlie looked like she might have been about to say something else, then she just leaned back against the wall and watched Kevin and Garth play.

Sam followed her lead, soon his brain filed the earlier events of the evening away and he was able to enjoy spending time with his friends.

Charlie and Garth, because Sam was the only one staying the night, left a couple of hours later. She had hugged Sam before having Garth’s dad drive her home.

Sam understood that it was a bonding hug.

* * *

French was quickly becoming one of Sam’s favourite classes. His teacher barely taught them anything, just handed out a workbook, explained how to conjugate a verb (with a flow chart to follow that could be used by an untrained monkey), and told them a couple of pages to do.

Needless to say, he was always done in under twenty minutes and he and Charlie just talked and fooled around quietly for the remainder of the block every day. 

Kevin and Garth who both had band in the same period were not a fan of Sam and Charlie bragging about having what is essentially a free block as freshmen. Garth because he liked to talk too much and was missing out on the time to be with them and Kevin because he hated band with a passion.

“She has me in cello practice on the weekends, I hardly see why I have to play the clarinet too,” He ranted one lunch break before he was forced through another band class, “And she believes it is an easy grade, I spent six hours doing scales the other day and only received a 90%.”

Sam never really understood what he was going through, he understood getting a bad grade, but Charlie was often the one to commiserate with him because she had only dropped the class a year prior.

“Why does Linda think band is an easy mark?” Sam asked as he sat in the french room with Charlie.

She shrugged. “It used to be, then the teacher had five kids in six years.”

“Why?”

“He and his wife both come from big families, but Bobby says they don’t have the money to do fuck all with them even if he thinks he’s gonna make it big in farming.”

Sam knew Bobby was Charlie’s adopted dad but they made their one little family with Charlie’s sibling that she’s only mentioned offhandedly. “The band teacher’s also a farmer?”

Charlie nodded emphatically as the teacher walked in, shutting them up.

“Talbot, hand these out,” Mr. Adler, though he was notorious enough that people knew him if you just said Adler, said, dropping a stack of papers on her desk. As she began to walk around the room, he continued, “Your workbooks were due at the beginning of class today and I have,” He riffled through a small stack, “Seven missing. You will have until the beginning of class Monday or the grade will be zero, it’s not that hard, just suck it up and do it.

“We’re starting a new project today. It's a partner project which means two, no more no less I don’t really care about your personal relationships just pick a partner and grow up.”

When he was done talking Sam started to read the handout. The project looked pretty easy, they just had to pick a random object out of a bin Adler provided and make a product out of it that they would make a sales video for. Entirely in French.

Sam was reading the specifics when a student, he wasn’t paying enough attention to figure out who, asked, “When is this due?”

“Monday,” The portion of the class that was paying attention froze. It was Friday, he couldn’t make something like this due in three days, could he? “Monday, February 1st. The Monday after next, you should learn not to jump to dumb conclusions like that.”

Adler walked behind his desk as the class either let out a sigh of relief or started turning to their new partners.

Sam turned to Charlie who, without looking, said, “There’s no school next Friday, if we need to do anything we can do it at my place since it’s still a normal workday and won’t be super hectic.”

“Hectic?”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Bobby has his garage, but the salvage yard is the back yard so whenever the shops closed- weekends and some evenings- that has a lot of people in it and Bobby kinda knows everyone so people will just stop by for a chat with him. And my brother has people over a bit.”

“How do you deal with that?”

“Oh, it's not that bad. Most of the people are outback, not in the house, and my room’s upstairs so it’s more isolated. Kevin and Garth have been over a bunch but winter gets busy with the shop and the yard ‘cause even good drivers are no match for a good snowin’.”

Sam nodded, Charlie’s life always interested him. It seemed chaotic and everything but she was very level-headed and definitely her own person, plus she only ever talked about her home with fondness.

“This is a group from last year, they had a larger class so they were in groups of three,” Adler sighed, “You are still only doing partners. We’ll spend the rest of the class watching these videos so you know what to do so pay attention because I will not answer stupid questions.”

Adler did spend the rest of class showing the videos, the students just spent the rest of class talking.

* * *

Sam, Charlie, Garth, and Kevin were all sitting in the science room early. They had no reason to stay in the classroom from the previous block and they generally preferred chairs over standing in the hallway.

Garth was explaining that he and his father were going hiking on Sunday, he said hunting at first which gave Sam the concerning image of Garth with a _gun_ , when Charlie asked, “Sam, what are you doing on Sunday?”

He looked up from shifting through his binder. Sunday was Dean’s birthday. “I have plans with my mom- a family tradition thing.”

“Okay, just know you have an open invitation to a party anytime after five.”

Sam looked at her strangely, and asked, “Why is there a party on a school night and why are you allowed to go?”

“It’s not that kind of party,” Kevin explained and Charlie nodded along with him, “It’s more of a big get-together, kids and parents, all in her backyard. They do it every year instead of-”

Charlie cut him off with a look. She could be dangerous for someone Sam already has a few inches on.

“I, uh, probably won’t be able to make it,” Sam said as the bell rang.

Charlie got up to move to her actual seat across the room. “That’s okay, just know the invites there.”

* * *

That wasn’t the only time Charlie brought up the party on Sunday. She mentioned it again, after calling him to hear if he’d heard the latest news Marvel released on one of their new shows Saturday morning.

She’d just finished a rant about Scarlett Johansson going blonde for Infinity War when she suddenly stopped and said, “At least Jo’s going to be there Sunday if you and Garth can’t go and Linda is helicoptering Kevin the whole time.”

“Who’s Jo?” Sam asked absently. She called him quite early and he fell down a rabbit hole of quick history videos the night before which kept him up late.

“Ellen’s daughter,” Than after a moment and probably realizing Sam has no idea who Ellen is, she added, “Ellen’s a good friend of Bobby’s, they live close but Jo’s a sophomore at a different school.”

Sam had woken up enough to then ask, “So you and Jo are good friends?”

“I guess,” Charlie sighed, “Wish we were more but she’s so straight she actually has a crush on my brother of all people.”

“What?” Sam suddenly realized his brain was not as alert as he thought it was once he started to try to connect the dots she just laid out.

“Damn you are not a morning person.” Charlie laughed, “Quick recap: Jo’s a family friend, she wants to kiss Dean, I wanna kiss her. You got that?”

“Yeah,” He murmured.

After a small pause, Charlie tentatively asked, “You don’t have a problem with me liking girls, do you?”

“What, no!” Sam’s brain quickly replayed every time he saw someone, straight or gay, teased in the hallways of the school for being different and all the old woman he’d run into on the streets talking about ‘them gays’. “I just grew up surrounded by a lot of shitty people.”

Charlie hummed, before adding, “Kansas, I guess that makes sense. It’s pretty good up here, I don’t exactly shout it aloud but it’s not a secret and no one’s ever given me any flack for it. But seriously, we’re good?”

“Yeah dude, no problem. Just remind me to keep any girl I’m trying to impress away from you, lest they be converted.”

It was a minor risk to make a joke about a serious topic like that, but Sam could hear Charlie’s smile when she said, “You better, I’ll win the heart of any girl just to prove it.”

“Please don’t,” Sam said, laughing, “I’d like a small chance.”

“You needn't fear good Samuel, your queen will provide you with the finest of ladies,” Charlie said in her LARPing voice. Sam had to go to the next one of those, he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be excited or scared.

He laughed again and redirected the conversation back to what Charlie had originally called to tell him before getting sidetracked. He did want to know what new news Marvel had released and Charlie was the fastest way to get that kind of info.

* * *

Saturday evening found Sam and his mom at the nearby grocery store. She was grabbing ingredients for pie, her recipe hadn’t changed since the last time Dean ate a slice, and Sam was grabbing chips and junk food for their once-a-year binge.

He was near the end of the chip aisle trying to stay below his three-bag limit when two people walked to the middle of the aisle.

“You have to pick,” Said a girl's voice.

When Sam looked over he recognized Dean from his first day at school, and subsequent days avoiding him, but he didn’t know the girl he was with. She had wavy black hair pulled into a ponytail and was trying- and succeeding- to intimidate the football player despite being several inches shorter.

Sam then remembered Charlie and started to wonder why the girls here were all intimidating.

“Why,” Dean protested.

“Because it’s your party,” Lees said. Sam didn’t recognize her name, but he knew Dean had mentioned dating someone the day he ran into Sam in the hall, he couldn’t remember the girl’s name though.

When all Dean did was scowl, she continued, “I know you don’t celebrate and this isn’t supposed to be all about you,” Lees rolled her eyes, “Suck it up big boy, ‘cause it is. Now, are we going to have this argument again, because I’ve won it every year since we were twelve?”

“Fine,” Dean grumbled, starting to look at the shelf.

With a smirk, Lees pulled out her phone and surreptitiously took a photo. She was sending proof to somebody if Sam had to wager a guess.

Sam left the aisle shortly after that, he ran into them a few more times in the store. Dean seemed to have similar resignations about choosing other things but Lees seemed to win most of the arguments.

He even found himself laughing silently when he overheard them laughing about the ‘legitimacy of cake’ of all things. 

Sam could tell they were close but they didn’t seem to be any more than friends. They still left him wondering about their close friendship though.

And was Dean still seeing the girl who Sam forgot the name of? Or was that Lees?

That probably wasn’t the case since Sam overheard Lees threaten to call someone named Cas, which Sam then remembered was the name of the girl Dean mentioned dating, and that seemed to once again intimidate Dean into doing what Lees told him to.

He hadn’t realized how much longer it had taken him to grab the stuff than it should have until he met his mom at the cash register and she asked, “Did you get lost in the candy aisle or something?”

Sam dodged her eyes and managed to catch a glimpse of Lees trailing after Dean further into the store. “Something like that,” He shrugged.

* * *

When Sam was really young and Dean’s birthday fell on a school day his mom used to pretend like it was any other day and let him go have fun with his friends.

Then he got older and started to ask her why most of his friends had dads and brothers and sisters and other family when all he had was her. He never understood what a painful reminder that was of the family that disowned her for marrying a man who left and stole her son in only a matter of a few years.

The first year he celebrated Dean’s birthday with her came right after Dean disappeared. Sam understood that they were celebrating a brother he once had, but photos and stories were barely enough for him to make a connection to Dean.

He wanted the connection though.

He wanted the protective big brother who used to stand outside Sam’s nursery with a bat to ‘protect Sammy’.

He wanted the built-in best friend that would never abandon him.

He wanted a brother.

He wanted to know _Dean_.

Sam has celebrated with his mom every year since then. No matter if he had school or could hang out with his friends. January 24th was about Dean Winchester.

By the time he was in middle school he knew enough to tell people that his brother went missing, because he did, even if he was technically with a member of his immediate family.

People didn’t understand that John wasn’t the perfect father he pretended to be for a long time. His mom never once bad-mouthed his father in front of him but Sam could see the forced smiles, hear the stretched truths, and notice the sudden topic changes.

He did eventually stop asking about John. Sam had read enough between the lines to know he didn’t want to know anymore.

John might have been a good man deep down, as his mom always said, but he took away Dean. He took away Sam’s family and he couldn’t be forgiven for that.

* * *

“Mom? Where are you?” Sam yelled down the stairs. He had woken up on his own later than he expected, he didn’t set his alarm the night before because his mom always woke him on Dean’s birthday.

A moment later she called back, “Living room.”

Sam entered the living room a few moments later, finding his mom sitting criss-cross on the couch with many things around her. She has put the court documents and anything relating to a paper trail on Dean away, now all that surrounded her were the few old photo albums of any photo his mom could find with Dean in it and some of his old things that John had overlooked after tearing Dean’s old room apart.

She was stroking the cover of Sam’s baby photo album when he sat down beside her. “I was so overwhelmed after Dean was born, I didn’t know how to parent a child, but when you came along I had kind of figured it out a bit more and I knew things had started to go downhill with John,” His mom explained, “I wanted more photos of ‘before’ and I will regret not doing this with Dean for the rest of my life.”

Her hand stopped moving and Sam could see her trying to hold back tears. His mom’s eyes were already red, he knew why she left him to sleep.

“Let’s look through it then, you can tell me all the stories you remember.”

She nodded before opening the book to the first page. They slowly went through old photos, taking the time to walk through every memory each one invoked. Sam even recited some of them, having heard the stories enough that it almost felt like he had been there.

Well, he was technically there for some of them, he just couldn’t remember any of it due to being an actual infant at the time.

By mid-afternoon, they had made it through a large portion of the photos and decided to move to the kitchen so his mom could start on the pie.

Despite her and Sam eating quite healthy most of the year and this being a relatively new house to them, his mom knew the pie recipe by heart and had all the ingredients and supplies laid out in perfect order across the counter.

Sam let her start on the pie. It was the one thing he let her do on Dean’s birthday, everything else was up to him. He made sure to clean the dishes and get her whatever she needed, he made her hot tea to soothe her throat after talking all day, and he cleaned up all of Dean’s possessions and photos and replaced them in the wooded chest.

Locking away his brother for another year.

His mom was always tired after Dean’s birthday, but she made sure to hug Sam and tell him she loves him before going off to bed.

Sam knew his mom loved him, that was never a question, but he also knew that he didn’t mind letting her love Dean a little more on his birthday.

After all, he got her love he had her to himself every other day of the year, he could share for a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How much pain has this caused you?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to say I'm sorry about this... but that would be a lie.

“You know we are going a bit over the top with this whole video right?” Charlie asked from across the lunch table.

Sam shrugged. “We can reign it in a bit if you want.”

“No, I like it,” She muttered. “But we’ll need some more time outside of school to get it done.”

Kevin, who had been sitting silently beside Sam, looked over to the two of them and asked, “I thought you were working on it on Friday?”

Charlie bopped her head somewhere between a nod and shaking it. “We are, but I think we need more time and we’ll probably not be super productive on a day off school so I think we could make use of some time before that.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “But when and where can we do it? It’s already Wednesday.”

She pondered that for a moment, before saying, “Why don’t you come over to my place tonight and we can start on the video since we should finish the script today?”

Sam had never been to Charlie’s and his mom worked until late, like all other weeknights, so they didn’t have many other places to go and he did want to see the awesome room Charlie was always bragging about.

“Okay, but who’s gonna be watching us?”

“Bobby will be at work ‘til five,” She said, “But my brother will be around the house and that’s enough to consider it ‘watching’ ‘cause were fourteen and will be playing with a phone and a piece of paper, it’s not exactly rocket science.”

Sam laughed, his mom wasn’t really that strict on him being home alone, as he had spent a lot of time alone at home since he was younger, but he knew she would rather someone older be there just in case.

“Wait,” He said suddenly, realizing he didn’t actually know. “How old is your brother?”

Charlie gave him an odd look, almost like the information should be obvious to him. “Uh, he just turned eighteen, he’s a senior.”

Ignoring her odd facial expression and tone of voice, Sam said, “Okay.”

“Great,” She smiled, “You can call your mom and I’ll text Bobby that I have a friend coming over- are you gonna stay for dinner?”

Sam had already taken his phone out and was pulling the call app up. “Um, probably not, I don’t really want Mom to have to eat alone.”

“Okay,” Was all Charlie said before diving into her phone and typing excitedly.

He got up from the table after that, taking his empty lunch bag and everything with him, to go out of the cafeteria to make the call. It, as he figured out, was common practice to call someone from the lobby of the school because it was less interruptive and had the best signal in a school with really terrible signal for the most part.

* * *

He had to lean against the wall once he got to the lobby due to the incoming flood of students, mostly juniors and seniors, that had returned from eating at a local place in town or went home for lunch.

A group stopped right in front of him and the person closest to him was, of course, Dean. They all appeared to be jock-y types and even though Sam knew that they wouldn’t pick on him just because he wasn’t their exact flavour of what someone was supposed to act like, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little intimidated.

Instead of calling his mom right away as he intended, Sam laid in wait for the immediate area around him to clear.

Dean and Benny, as Sam remembered, along with a couple of other people in the group seemed to be reminiscing about some party they had had that weekend. It had apparently been at Dean’s house which Sam figured made sense, even if there was no jock-superiority here there still seemed to be somewhat of a hierarchy amongst them.

One in which Dean seemed to be atop of.

Everyone in the group seemed to care what he said, especially the dark haired guy that was practically leaning on him, they were like sheep to a shepherd, but they still managed to tease him about something cutesy he had done at the party with Cas.

Sam still hadn’t met this Cas girl and he started to wonder if she even went to their school, but every one of the people in the group in front of him knew her.

Eventually, they did move. The hallways were mostly empty by the time Sam willed himself to make the phone call to his mom.

She picked up after just one ring and Sam considered himself lucky for accidentally calling on her lunch break or her phone would’ve been in her purse a room away from her. “Hello,” Was all she said.

“Uh, hi Mom. I was just wondering if I could go to Charlie's this evening to work on that french project I mentioned to you?”

She paused for a moment. “Aren’t you going over there on Friday?”

“Um,” Sam cringed at himself, he wasn’t used to asking to go places having been strictly a homebody for years. “We were hoping to do both ‘cause we want to get it done without rushing and were pretty sure we won’t be super productive on Friday.”

His mom once again didn’t say anything for a few moments. Sam’s hope started to sink before she finally said, “Okay, you can go this evening but I won’t be able to pick you up until I get home from work.”

Sam knew that also meant supper wouldn’t be ready until late because he had been getting it started or at least ready to start most nights since they moved. 

“Actually,” He said, “I was just gonna grab a ride home from her dad or brother, I have some homework to do and I can throw the chicken in as well.”

“Are you sure Sam? You can stay later if her dad is okay with it.”

“Nah, we’ll get done as much as we can then we still have tomorrow in class and Friday to work on it,” He explained.

“Okay, but I still want to meet her dad before I drop you off on Friday, remember that. And be good and nice, and all that.”

Sam laughed lightly. “I know and I’ll remember that sage advice Mom.”

“Oh hush.” She paused for a moment, “Is that all Sam? I have to get back to work.”

He didn’t respond right away, he was tempted to ask if she was okay because Dean’s birthday was just a few days ago and it always took a lot out of her especially now on top of a new job, but he didn’t. “Yeah, bye Mom.”

“Goodbye.” She hung up the phone and Sam wished he could do something to help alleviate the pain she was in.

* * *

After science ended Sam took longer to pack up than he usually did. Most days he had to rush out the door to get a decent seat on the bus but today he was walking with Charlie.

“Why don’t you take the bus or go home with your brother, if he has a car?”

Charlie snorted. “Yeah he has a car, but same reason for both of those, I don’t go home right after school most days. I either end up finishing whatever science homework she gave us or I go down to the computer lab.”

“What about if it’s raining or snowing,” Sam asked, looking at the thin layer of snow on the ground.

“Then I’ll call someone for a drive,” She said, shrugging.

The walk to her house wasn’t too far, although it appeared to be outside of town it was really just an easy shortcut through a field and some trees before they were on her property. When they made it up to her house Sam noticed that there were no cars in the driveway.

There were definitely cars in the yard, but none of them looked exactly driveable. Or whole.

He didn’t say anything but based on the way Charlie looked around, then looked down the street, she knew what he was wondering. “He’ll be home soon,” She said, “He knows he’s supposed to be here.”

* * *

About half an hour later Sam was videoing Charlie holding up the item that they had been given. It was a magnifying glass that they were calling ‘Le Spy Eye’’ and were using as a spy/detective tool.

They were super creative.

The script they created had Charlie acting as a spy, wearing all black with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, and saving various versions of Sam from the dreaded evil lord; Dr. Mal.

After she messed up her line again and started laughing, Sam let her take a break for a few minutes. He looked around her room, where they were filming her using the device to peak around her door frame, and was not let down by the bragging she had done.

She had a full wall of bookshelves covered mostly with books but also quite a few board games that Sam had never heard of. Her desk had a computer that was surrounded by a couple small desk-top shelves with many notebooks and sticky notes in, and the wall behind it was covered in sticky notes. The room was also quite large and her double bed was not nearly as imposing as Sam’s in his smaller room at his house.

Charlie seemed to calm down after a few moments and was fiddling with the tripod she mentioned to Sam. “Would you rather use this or have Dean film us when we both have to be in the shot?”

Sam was still admiring the Avengers and LOTR posters on the wall so he just muttered, “It doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Okay, but lets at least get some of my solo stuff done first.”

He finally let his focus return to her when she is back in the starting position for the ‘scene’. They run the one by the door a few more times, then followed by a few scenes where any talking will be placed over the video by Charlie.

They’re running the last of Charlie’s solo scenes for the second time when Sam heard a very loud vehicle pull up. Shortly after that, he could make out a door opening and multiple people walking around.

Charlie’s room was at the top of the stairs so sound travelled from the entranceway quite easily.

Sam also learned that that means sound travels down just as well when Charlie, after rolling her eyes and sighing, stepped out to the hall and yelled, “We’re doing a thing, could ya be quiet for once?”

A guy's voice happily yelled back, “Nope,” But the sound downstairs diminished all the same.

“They’re so loud,” Charlie complained dramatically.

“They? I thought it was just your brother that was going to be home?”

She shrugged before saying, “Castiel’s probably with him; they’re inseparable. Have you met either of them?”

He shook his head. Unsure why she was so convinced he had.

“Huh,” Charlie muttered, “He said he ran into you once.”

Sam just shook his head again but Charlie was paying him very little attention. Eventually, they got back to filming and managed to finish all the scenes they wanted to. All they had left was a bit of the video they would film in the hallway of the school the next day and the series of Sam in increasingly more obscure outfits in the scenes where Charlie ‘saves’ him and with the outro of him showing off the gadget as those weird and of commercial specs are read off by him.

He’s surprised and happy about the amount of progress that made that day.

“You excited to dress up on Friday?” Charlie asked.

“I’m excited for it to _be_ Friday, the costumes less so.”

She laughed at his pain. “So what about Dr. Mal? We need someone to ‘laser’ for that scene.”

“Will your brother be here Friday, can he do it?”

Charlie paused putting the paper with the script on it back in her binder. “I’m sure that I can make him,” She paused at his look, “What, he’s my big brother, he tries his best to be awesome.”

Sam smiled at the praise she had for her brother, but still, it brought up the feelings he thought he suppressed long ago about wanting to have that kind of relationship with his own brother.

He pushed those thoughts down once more when Charlie turned around and asked, “Are you ready to go?”

* * *

Having walked straight upstairs from the entryway when they arrived a few hours prior, Sam found himself fascinated with the rest of the Singer house.

It was old, with weird wallpaper and dim lights, but it had a home-y feel to it that was lacking in Sam’s new house and not all the way there in his old one. The living room had an old couch and more books than your average book sale.

The house looked outdated but it wasn’t sketchy and didn’t seem to be anything but perfectly stable and modernized. Sam suspected the two teenagers living in the house were the cause of the fancy TV that looked quite out of place in the living room.

The kitchen was more updated but Sam was more concerned with the gruff-looking old guy taking a large knife to a chunk of uncooked meat to be bothered with the cupboards and general kitchenware.

“Are you cooking those?” Charlie asked suddenly.

The man, who Sam had to assume was Bobby, turned to look at her before saying, “I’ve heard you lot complain enough times. I’m leavin’ it up to the other two idjits to figure it out.”

Sam was pretty sure he heard Charlie mutter something about the food being edible at least, but chose not to question it.

“Where are they?” She asked, aloud this time, and looking behind her as if her brother and his friend would just appear after she asked.

“Work buildin’,” Bobby said, back to butchering his meat chunk.

“Dibs not.” Sam gave her an odd look, before she elaborated, “When the two of them are in the workshop, you never know what you’ll walk in on.”

He couldn’t imagine what she was talking about, but he suspected it might be above his pay grade so he didn’t ask.

“Well since yer not goin’ out there, and I’m not goin’ out there, and we're not sending yer tree friend over here, so you can call ‘em.”

“Mmkay,” Charlie muttered, going off to make the call.

Once she was gone, Sam stood still where he was standing, sensing it was best not to be on Bobby’s bad side.

“You gonna sit, boy?” Bobby asked him after finally dumping the knife in the sink.

Hurriedly Sam made his way into a barstool before Bobby turned back to him and gave him an analyzing stare. Sam chose to stare at the counter in front of him.

“What’d you say your name was, again?”

“Uh, Sam Campbell, Sir,” He rushed.

Bobby’s stare deepened. “Never hearda ya. But you damn sure remind me a somebody,” Was all he said before turning back to the cuts of meat.

By the time Charlie got back Bobby was done seasoning the meat and had returned to staring at Sam pensively. “They’ll be in in a minute, we good to go?”

Bobby nodded and walked out of the room. Sam didn’t move until he heard the front door open.

* * *

Bobby drove Sam home in an old truck. He and Charlie were upfront while Sam tried to figure out who it was more appropriate that he sits behind.

In the end, he sat behind Bobby so Charlie could see him.

And Bobby couldn’t.

They took the same route back to Sam’s that Sam always took going to or from Kevin’s house so he could easily watch the checkpoints between the two.

The truck was silent for the first few minutes and Sam just stared out the window knowing Charlie was generally uncaring about awkward situations.

“How’d’ya like Sioux Falls so far, Sam?” Bobby asked suddenly.

“It’s been good.”

Bobby was apparently in a chatty mood because he continued, “Where did ya move here from?”

Instead of Sam answering, Charlie interrupted them without even looking up from her phone. “Kansas,” She said. “Kevin, Garth, and I had to teach him that not every place is that shitty.”

Bobby made an annoyed sound before muttering, “I know some less than great folks from them parts of the woods.”

Charlie nodded at that, she didn’t seem surprised to hear Bobby being annoyed by the Populus of an entire state.

They finally arrived at Sam’s house a few minutes later, it was dark and empty but Sam insisted he was allowed to be home alone and that his mom would be home soon.

“Will she be droppin’ you off Friday, I’d like to meet ‘er sometime soon since you and Charlie are friends now?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, slowly backing out of the truck, “She wanted to meet you too. ‘Cause, she’s met Linda and Garth’s parents.”

“I’ll be seein’ the two aya Friday then,” Bobby said.

“Bye Sam,” Charlie yelled as he shut the back door of the truck. He waved to her as Bobby backed out of the lane.

Sam went inside and pulled the chicken and mayo out of the fridge. His mom was home a few minutes before it finished cooking and asked if he had a good time.

“It was fine. Her dad is… interesting.”

His mom just gave him the ‘be nice’ face from when he was a kid but said nothing more on the issue.

* * *

As with most short school weeks before a long weekend, ‘Fake’ Friday was always more anticipation-filled than your average Thursday or even Friday.

Sam’s day wasn’t any different overall. Nothing out of the ordinary happened until his break after french class.

He had to go to the bathroom but he knew the one closer to his classroom was where far too many people went each break and it always smelled like vape, but he’d never actually seen anyone vaping in there.

Sam went down to the bathroom just past the gym. He’s used the bathroom before and it was almost always empty; he was first surprised by people being in there.

He was further surprised to see who it was.

There were two guys on the far end of the bathroom from Sam and neither had noticed him enter. One of the guys had the other pinned against the wall. Sam was surprised that this surprised him, at one point he had expected this kind of behaviour from people but since being at this school he had unlearned that.

The guy against the wall was one Sam was pretty sure he had never seen before, at least as far as he could tell. The guy had black hair and seemed completely unfazed that he was pinned to a wall.

The other guy happened to be one Sam recognized. _Dean_

Even with all of the time he spent actively avoiding Dean he had come to think that this was an impossible scenario. Jocks weren’t abusive dicks here. But apparently, Dean was the exception.

When Dean leaned forward and whispered something in the other guy’s ear, Sam expected anger or maybe even fear. The guy couldn’t be more than a couple inches shorter than Dean, but he didn’t exactly give off the appearance of someone who could take on a football player.

But instead, the guy just smirked.

Sam couldn’t quite understand if that was some tactical maneuver or if this guy did somehow have a way out of his current predicament.

By the time Sam finally figured out a safe way to approach Dean, because his own safety was important just like the other guys’, something highly unexpected happened.

Dean moved a hand from the wall to the guy's cheek and kissed him.

_Kissed._

Like a full-on guy-on-guy-make-out session that sent Sam, silently, sprinting out of the bathroom. He slowed down once he hit the hallway but didn’t stop moving until he was sitting at his desk in the science room.

No matter how accepting he learned this school was, there was nothing that could have prepared him for seeing the actual football team captain, making out with a dude.

For the remainder of that science class Sam did not gain any knowledge of chemical equations, nor did he actively think about Dean and that guy, which he counted as a win.

Once class, and his teacher’s monotonous monologue, ended Sam’s brain was free to wander about the identity of this guy and how he’d never heard of Dean liking guys, or where on Earth Dean’s supposed girlfriend played into this.

Sam also wondered how he had never seen the guy around school before. Assuming Dean didn’t just sneak him in for an afternoon break make-out session.

While walking out of the school attempting to get onto the bus, Sam’s path out the school doors was blocked by Gabriel, a kid a grade above him, and the guy from the bathroom earlier, who appeared to be in a heated discussion about something.

Sam knew it was just the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, but it was still weird to suddenly notice the guy after seeing him for the first time earlier that day.

Or maybe he had but just never paid attention.

“...But you can just get a ride with Dean, it’s not like you're not going to his house anyway,” Gabriel pleaded. Apparently, Dean and this guy’s whatever was not a secret, to Gabe at least.

“This is my car which I paid for,” The guy reasoned. “You also do not have the proper license to operate a motor vehicle without an adult present.”

The two were walking slowly, but still moving closer and closer to through the lobby doors. Therefore, closer to Sam’s escape.

“It’s only a short drive, I’ll be super careful. Please, please, pretty-please, Cas.”

Sam faintly heard the responding no, but he found that he had suddenly become the roadblock of many other students trying to escape the building. He moved against the wall as the pieces all fell into place.

That was Cas. Cas who was dating Dean. Dean who was openly dating a guy. Dating a guy and nobody cared at all whatsoever.

Needless to say, but Sam had an interesting bus ride home slowly realizing that this made a lot of sense based on the things he’s seen and heard.

* * *

Friday morning Sam woke up groggy and annoyed. Charlie wanted him at her house for nine. Which shouldn’t feel like hell for Sam considering his 7:30am wake-up call on school days, but it did.

He made his way down to the kitchen to find his mom had pulled some of his precooked bacon and an Eggo waffle out of the freezer. Sam quickly put them in the microwave and toaster respectively before grabbing some milk.

His mom didn’t have to go into the office right away that morning so she just accepted a slightly later first appointment time than she otherwise would have in preparation for talking to Bobby.

“You ready to go?” She asked, walking into the kitchen as he loaded his dishes into the dishwasher.

Sam just nodded and followed her out to the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sorted out the heteronormativity at least, that's good enough for now... right?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my Beta Van'ty for reading this after me annoying you to death.
> 
> Please leave a kudos if you please, or a comment if you'd like. I also have a Tumblr under the same username if you'd like to drop by and say Hi!


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